


Truth or Dare

by mars_morpheus, orphan_account



Category: Wolverine and the X-Men (Comics)
Genre: F/M, Like, Mutants, Science, Witty Repartee, Xmen, and let's face it, anyway, at least last time i checked, but I think it's kinda cute, but i think it'd be fun to like, cross over with deadpool and stuff, everywhere, it says it's a collab but that's cause i tried to switch pseuds and failed, kid omega - Freeform, marianas trench references, set during the wolverine and the xmen comics, spray can whipped cream, there's not a hell of a lot of quire fics on here, unadulterated loathing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-25
Updated: 2020-05-14
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:01:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21564196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mars_morpheus/pseuds/mars_morpheus, https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Jaime Hale is an unfriendly photokinetic with a lot of secrets. Quentin Quire is an absolute bastard of a telepath with no concept of privacy. Can I make it any more obvious?
Relationships: Quentin Quire/Original Character(s)
Kudos: 5





	1. First Effort, Last Ditch

“I can’t believe I’m sitting in space jail with you of all people.” Jaime Hale’s words clanked around the small, grey cell like a medieval knight. She laid her head back against the wall of the cell, very aware of how nasty her long red hair was going to be once she got back to the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning and took it out of its braid. Her suit was probably filthy, too.

  
Jaime was speaking to Quentin Quire, her classmate and fellow X-Person in training. Unfortunately for Jaime, Quire, and an entire marketplace on the planet Voltex, the two of them had been paired up for a project on quantum travel, and long story short they were now in space jail for petty theft and resisting arrest. Both of which, by the way, were actually working out really well until Quire screwed up.  
Quentin Quire, also known sometimes as Kid Omega, was, true to character, not wearing his black leathery X-Men suit. He was instead wearing the same stupid outfit that he always wore: black schoolboy shorts, a white t-shirt with a sloppily markered controversial slogan on the front, and a black blazer (which was currently folded under his head like a pillow). He was wearing the assigned combat boots, but the ironic orange-tinted glasses and hot-pink undercut hair balanced out that small admission to the mutant school’s dress code. To be fair, Jaime didn’t believe in the dress code and typically didn’t follow it. The mission uniform was actually kind of cool, though. Quire, one of whose major faults was believing that since he was an Omega-level telepath he was better than everybody else, was the proverbial bee in Jaime’s proverbial bonnet, always finding ways to be within bothering distance of her. He was lying, knobbly knees bent, on his back on a wall-mounted bench that wrapped all the way around the small room. His section of the bench was the one around to corner to Jaime’s left, and he was currently occupied in examining his long, spidery hand as if he was an early Edwardian heiress signalling politely that she was finished with the conversation at hand.

  
“I can’t believe,” he shot back, smarmily, “that not only are you wearing the regulated uniform imposed on us by the fascist dictatorship we live in, you’re also managing somehow to look almost hot in it.”  
“What a beautiful compliment.” If only he could see the proverbial daggers she was shooting from her eyes. “Perhaps you might try wearing it. It might allow your appearance to achieve mediocrity at least.”  
Quire folded his hands over his chest and turned his head toward Jaime, pink hair falling untidily over his forehead. “Why, Ms. Hale, are you suggesting that I wear your clothes? Because I hope you’re aware of the implications of that.”

  
“I swear, Quire, I’m going to find handcuffs and cuff you to the wall and -”

  
“Kinky.”

  
“And leave you to rot.” It wasn’t that Jaime didn’t have a sense of humour, it was just that she was pissed. The plan had been to use their extra-credit quantum leap device to jump to Voltex, steal some stuff for souvenirs, and jump back. No problem. Neither of them were exactly above breaking the law a little anyway, so the whole theft-is-wrong thing wasn’t an issue. But then, just when Jaime had slipped a cool lighter into the opening of her glove, Quire decided to try and con one of the vendors at the marketplace out of a whole-ass turtle, which of course didn’t work, and then he implicated her and the police, once called, took the lighter. And now they were in jail and it was all Quire’s fault.

  
The dull crash of a door closing sounded from the end of the hallway to the right of the cell, and a guard come along past the open, barred wall.

  
“Hey, you with the uniform!” Jaime called out to the guard, who looked mostly humanoid, but with pointier features and spiky green anime hair that seemed to wave in the nonexistent wind a little bit. He stopped, curious.

  
“Hey, hi. Yeah, so I really need this machine that I have, but it’s been confiscated.” The guard rolled his eyes and began to walk away, but she kept talking to stop him. “No, no, wait, seriously. It’s medical. I have this condition – see the shades? And I could die if I don’t get that machine soon, like now soon.” This lie wasn’t working. She prepared to use her mutation.

  
Jaime’s mutation was the ability to manipulate light – in this case, the subtle emotionally-based light emanating from Anime-Hair Guy. She saw it as an aura. Yes, like chakra bullshit auras. The cool part was that she could take a person’s aura and bend it or pull it in different directions, change the colour even. The less cool part was how long it had taken her to learn how to turn it off when she needed to. The metal goggles she wore helped her filter out some of the louder inputs, and kept in the light she couldn’t control. She never took them off.

  
Now she did take them off, in order to stare into Anime-Hair Guy’s eyes and grab his aura, giving herself control over it. When she spoke, it was simple: “Bring me my machine.” He’d know which was the right one, as long as he was back in a short enough time that her power didn’t wear off.

  
He was back in four minutes – it was close, since her record was five. Now came the fun part, and also the necessary part. Now Jaime got to drain the rest of his energy. Not enough to kill him, of course, but enough that he’d pass out, sleep like a baby, and remember almost nothing when he eventually woke up. It gave her a boost, too, like an overpriced energy drink. With her goggles back on, Jaime flashed Quire a thumbs up where he sat, legs crossed, on the bench.

  
Quire’s signature look of disdain had been replaced by a still-somewhat-disdainful expression of curiosity. “What did you do to him? Is he dead?”

  
“No.” He was so dramatic. “I used my mutation.”

  
“I thought you did light stuff.” She rolled her eyes, not that he could tell.

  
They each put a hand on one of the two handles on the quantum leap machine, twisted, and were suddenly and somewhat nauseously back at school.

  
The Jean Grey School for Higher Learning was, if anything, an interesting place to spend one’s days. Jaime was grateful, too, that she was able to attend the school, since she was getting help with controlling her power. Still, it was a school. A school with a headmaster and a headmistress and a choir, and a Quire, no less. It was lunch, currently, back on Earth – just the end of it, since they’d been the full hour stealing and getting caught. Which meant that, performance test over, it was now almost class and time to present their project.

  
A brief scuffle over possession of the leap machine ensued as soon as they returned to their departure point under a set of stairs, and Jaime let Quire win. Let him.

  
“Are you going to answer my question?” He fell into step beside her as she checked a wall-mounted clock to see exactly what time it was. Sure, he’d put the machine into its case properly enough, but did he have to swing it around in the air like some sort of lunatic?

  
“What question?”

  
“If not light stuff, what’s your mutation?” The case nearly smashed into a wall. She noticed that the two of them were receiving uncomfortable glances from several other students, who were probably afraid that they were friends now. Which was not the case.

  
“Why do you want to know?”

  
“I’m hoping that curiosity will kill the Quentin.”

  
“Then we both want you dead. I’ll have to leave you in suspense.” Jaime hurried off in the direction of the dormitories to change out of her mission uniform.

  
The dormitories were boring, basically. Little rooms with tacky carpet and beige everything, but at least she didn’t have to share with a roommate. As she stepped into hers, she stepped instinctively over the trip wire in the doorway and her messy pile of books on poison. It was 11:40. Dammit. She didn’t have enough time to assemble a real outfit, which meant that for the first time in her seven months at the school she was going to have to wear the uniform, which consisted of a short green plaid pleated skirt, white blouse, and grey blazer. Also a weird black tie, but that wasn’t happening in the five minutes she had. And she was NOT wearing the ugly flats, either – the combat boots would work just fine.

  
Jaime made it through the door of Quantum Biophysics, Molecular Phylogenetics and Other Elementary Scientific Concepts just as the bell rang. Regularly, she wouldn’t be in such a rush, but she actually liked the teacher. Which, like, you have one guess. It was Henry McCoy, aka Beast, aka World’s Biggest Nerd Loser but Actually Kinda Cool. Unfortunately, Jaime ran into an interesting seating arrangement: she didn’t notice that she was not sitting next to her usual partner in the set of two conjoined desks in the back right corner, and by the time she did, class had already started and she couldn’t move. Which meant that she was right next to Quire. Yay. Her favourite person.

  
“Hey best friend!” Quire’s telepathic voice was just as smug as his regular one would be if he was using it.

Jaime slid down in her seat as she thought back at him. “Of all the seats in this class, Quire, why the hell would you pick this one?”

  
“Just to be difficult.” Something sounded off about his response, but she wasn’t going to ask and she was not going to read his energy. “Are you wearing another figurative orange jumpsuit imposed by the fascists we are meant to be learning from?” Out of the corner of her eye, she could see him smirking.

  
“It’s an unfortunate by-product of being arrested.”

  
“You should definitely get arrested more often, then.”

  
What the hell. “What the hell.”

  
“What?”

  
“What is wrong with you?”

  
“Oh, you know, this and that, emotional trauma and mental illness.”

  
She rolled her eyes. “You’re ridiculous.”

  
“Question for question: what’s your mutation?”

  
“Wouldn’t you like to know.”

  
“Come on, Jaime Hale. This is mutant school. You can’t just keep your superpower a secret.”

  
“It’s not a secret, I’m just not telling you.”

  
“Boo.”

  
“Quentin Quire and Jaime Hale.” Jaime looked up in a state of mild panic, worried that Professor McCoy had caught on to the fact that they weren’t paying attention. “Your presentation?”

  
Oh thank Asgard. They made their way to the front of the class, Quire still in possession of the machine and its case. First, however, they had to make a speech on whether or not they thought quantum technology was possible and, if so, what sort of timeline it would arrive on. Of course, the fact that they’d invented a machine for it was a surprise. It was going to be awesome when they unveiled what was in the case.

  
It was a regular, boring presentation. They had cue cards and a poster board with graphics. This was unusual for both Quire and Jaime, since they were known as the troublemakers of the Jean Grey School, and most of their audience was obviously disappointed, except perhaps Broo, who was a juvenile Brood and was literally the nice-oblivious-nerd-kid stereotype to a T except for that he was like three feet tall and all his relatives were hive-mind murdery aliens.

  
“And so, in conclusion, quantum travel is totally possible,” drawled Quire, who hadn’t wanted to do the presentation at all. There was a smattering of unenthusiastic applause from the class.

  
“If I may,” Professor McCoy spoke up. “Before you go back to sit down, you didn’t mention when you expect this technology to be invented.”

  
Jaime grinned slowly. This was the part of the presentation they’d actually practiced. “Professor, I’m so glad you asked. Quire, if you would unbox our surprise?”

  
Quire did so, clearly as excited as she was, if slightly less smiley. “Gladly, Hale.” With a flourish, he unclipped the case, which was actually just a metal briefcase, and showed off the shiny, glowing device inside in the manner of a bikini-clad lady at the beginning of a motorcycle racing arcade game.

  
“You see, the answer to your question – when will quantum technology be invented? It was the day before yesterday, at like – what time was it? Three?”

  
“Closer to four.”

  
“You must be joking.” Professor McCoy stood up and moved closer to inspect the device. “This really works?”

  
“Well,” Jaime responded, “I’d recommend plugging in different coordinates if you don’t want to go to jail, but yeah.”

  
“I’d like to keep this for a few days, if that’s all right. If you two are correct, this could be revolutionary. Thank you, Ms. Hale and Mr. Quire.”

  
Jaime and Quire returned to their seats; she couldn’t speak for him, but she was elated. It looked like it was going to be a skip-last-period-and-hang-around-on-the-roof day, which meant that it was also a no-goggles day.

  
“Mental fist bump.” Quire’s voice spoke in her mind.

  
“Don’t think this means I don’t consider you my mortal enemy. But yeah. Mental fist bump.”

  
=====================================================================================

  
The roof of the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning was a majestic, turreted affair from ground level and an excellent one-person party location up top. Jaime liked to come up here often, whether she needed a break or, like now, wanted to celebrate. She’d already been in the kitchen and stolen four cookies and a full spray can of whipped cream, so it was going to be pretty lit. Sarcasm. Obviously, she also had her cellphone (and headphones, because as soon as you blast something loud and explicit from the roof, your secret hiding place is gone forever). She held the cookies, which were wrapped in a napkin, aloft in her left hand while she half-walked-half-slid down the side of a peak to a small, flat square surrounded by similar manmade hills. The spray can and her phone were in her blazer pocket.

  
She sat down, leaning back on her elbows against the steep slope, and set her things out in a straight line next to her. Then she pressed the two buttons on the sides of her goggles and pulled them off, blinking in the sunlight. She hardly had time to plug her headphones, which were around her neck, into her phone, before a loud skittering noise sounded from behind her, followed by a muffled “ow!” and some quiet cursing. Peering up over the edge of the peak, Jaime caught sight of the very last person she would have expected – or wanted – to see invading her personal area.


	2. A Better Liar

Quentin Quire was only curious about where Jaime Hale was going. Who wouldn’t be? There was a good chance that she was heading off to pull an elaborate prank on him, and he wasn’t about to just leave that chance alone to turn out however it was going to turn out. Plus, he wanted to know how she intended to ingest cookies and whipped cream without seeing them – he couldn’t imagine she could see well with those goggles on, and fine, he was curious about what her eyes looked like or whatever.

That sounded so gross.

Jaime was somewhat of a mystery to him. He hadn’t really gone through her mind, not yet anyway, and she hadn’t let any information on her real mutation slip despite his attempts to probe her subconscious for details. It must have something to do with the goggles, but, despite the fact that he was an Omega-level telepath and had several thousand brilliant thoughts a second (or so he liked to claim), he couldn’t for the life of him figure out what it might be.

  
He followed Jaime at a safe distance, keeping as quiet as he could as she made her clearly familiar way across the school’s treacherous roof. Suddenly, while he watched, she disappeared from view. Oh, shit. Had she fallen off? He sped up. Oh god. He was going to be framed for murder. His foot caught on a folded shingle and he tripped, nearly falling. “Ow!” He swore a few times, then hurried toward the place where Jaime had dropped out of sight.

  
An unexpected pain in his shin toppled him over forward and down into a sunken rectangular area. Upside down and folded over on himself, it took Quentin a moment to recognize Jaime’s long red hair and disgruntled expression – she must have hit him with something. He righted himself and noticed that she was indeed not wearing her goggles. “How’s it hanging, Hale?”

  
She wrinkled her nose at him without speaking, which was unusual for her. He noticed that she had more freckles than he’d assumed she might. Her hair was mostly over her eyes, though.

  
“Cat got your tongue?” He said it in a helpful tone, but they both knew it was meant to press her buttons. She pointed angrily at her temple with her thumb and first two fingers, miming telepathy. “Funny, I was under the impression that you didn’t like talking this way.” Quentin switched effortlessly to mental communication.

  
“I don’t,” she responded, “but I can’t exactly speak normally at the moment.”

  
“Why not?”

  
“None of your business. What are you doing here?”

  
“I followed you, obviously. What’s your story?”

  
“I’m having a very small party, and you aren’t invited.”

  
“What are you going to do?” He arched an eyebrow at her. “Throw me off the roof?”

  
“Don’t give me any ideas.”

  
“Why do you wear those goggles? I don’t imagine they’re incredibly comfortable.”

  
“They’re not.”

  
“So are you unable to speak without them or something? Does that even make sense?”

  
“Ish.” She picked up one of her cookies and inspected it. “Don’t you have someplace to be?”

  
“Yeah, English class. Same as you.”

  
“That makes it sound like you’ve memorized my schedule.”

  
He shot her an ironic grin, pink hair flopping over one eye as he tilted his face upward. “Bold of you to assume I haven’t.” He had, actually. Although, to be fair, they had most of the same classes.

  
“Go away, Quire. I’m busy.”

  
“No, you’re not.”

  
“Yes, I am.”

  
“No, you’re not.”

  
“Yes, I am – dude, seriously, get lost.”

  
“You’re just eating unholy snacks and being, like, edgy and pretty – shit, pretty edgy, I mean – all by yourself.”

  
“Actually, I’m also listening to music, and I was going to do all of this without my lit shades.”

  
“I mean, you could still.” Lit shades. That was just lazy.

  
“And you could make your millions as a comedian.”

  
“What music is it?” He wasn’t leaving, especially when Jaime had just dropped such an interesting statement. “Nightcore? Kidz Bop?” He crossed himself.

  
“Don’t be gross.” She shuddered.

  
“Well, what is it?”

  
She shrugged. “Probably Marianas Trench.”

  
“Whomst?” He’d heard of them, but he was pretending not to have.

  
“You don’t know Marianas Trench?” She raised her eyebrows at him in disbelief.

  
He shrugged.

“Unacceptable. Next you’re going to tell me you listen to Lil Pump or something.”

  
Quentin smirked. “Now you’re the comedian.”

  
She gave a “heh” sort of a laugh, out loud, and winced.

  
“You good?”

  
“Fine, whatever.”

  
“You know,” He lay back against the roof. “You’re not going to be able to hide your mutation forever.”

  
She didn’t respond for a long moment. “I… can’t control it.”

  
“Lights?”

  
She, too, leaned back. “Without my goggles, yeah. If I don’t wear them, everything I see or hear just channels itself through me, and I don’t know how to stop it. The more upset I get, the more dangerous the light is.”

  
“So that’s why we’re not talking.”

  
“Seeing is hard enough. I come up here to let it out, so I don’t, you know, explode.”

  
“Huh.” He considered this. “Can I see?” Immediately, he kicked himself for asking. How stupid do you have to be, Quire?

  
Jaime sighed. “I guess you already know.” She reached into her pocket and peered at the screen of a cellphone, scrolling through something. Quentin watched her face, still hoping to see her eyes.  
“Quire.” He hadn’t noticed her trying to pass him an earbud.

  
“It’s easier with music,” she explained, and pressed play.

  
He couldn’t put a name to the song, and he couldn’t say that he cared for it, though nor did he hate it.

  
Pale strands of colour started to seep from her eyes. She took a deep breath, and suddenly a wall of blue-grey stood, shifting, in front of him, and Quentin was hit suddenly with a wave of emotion. Loneliness. A shorter line, pink, passed across it: irritation, definitely. Reds and greens mixed with the blue, but that remained the main tone. The pink streak, though, started to grow, from annoyance to disdain, disdain to dislike. It finally overtook the blue; Quentin found himself rooting for it idly. By the time it had grown into hatred, the blue was nearly gone. But when the last sliver of blue had disappeared, he realized that he’d been wrong. It wasn’t hatred at all. The irritation of the little pink streak had actually grown into love.

  
The song ended, and with a sudden burst, the pink light crumbled outward around a blue center and disappeared.


	3. Chapter 3

Jaime had slept fitfully, unable to stop thinking about the events of yesterday afternoon. She’d never imagined that she’d let anybody see her power, much less Quire, but somehow she hadn’t, you know, hated it. She’d almost felt like – well, she wondered now if Quire had been messing with her mind. But at the time, she’d almost felt glad that he, of all people, knew. Now? She wasn’t sure. It all came down, she supposed, to how he dealt with the knowledge.

  
She’d slept through her alarm this morning, missing breakfast, and she barely made it to first period on time. She was wearing black pants; a black shirt, tied at the front, with “BDE” written in pink on the front pocket; a pink flannel, unbuttoned; and the usual boots. Her hair was loose, since she’d had no time to braid it or anything, instead prioritizing makeup (concealer and lipgloss, plus, just in case, some eyeliner).  
It was the first day of Fighting With Fighting, a companion class to Fighting Without Fighting. Both classes were taught by Wolverine. Jaime didn’t really know what to expect from today’s class, but she did have some time to wonder. Math came first. Technically, her first-period class’s name was “Algebra Sucks: I Know, But You Still Have to Learn It”, and it was taught by Bobby Drake, a.k.a. Iceman. Professor Drake was right. It did suck. He was obviously good at math, but he was – well – not the best at teaching. Not enthusiastic. This was the only class, incidentally, that she didn’t have with Quire.

  
The full 75 minutes of the class passed slowly. She almost fell asleep simply out of boredom. Finally, though, it was over, and the whole class (except Broo, of course) rushed out of the room en masse. Jaime found her way to the danger room and entered the small room off to the side of it. This was a sort of viewing area for the main danger room, and she found several classmates scattered about the bleacher-like seats. She sat down near the door.

  
Jaime felt, rather than saw, Quire folding his bony limbs over the seat next to her. “’Sup,” he said, sleepily. She assumed he’d been up all night, then slept through first period. It wouldn’t be the first time.  
She nodded at him, feeling a little awkward about yesterday. “You good?”

  
“Mhm.” He crossed his legs beneath him. “Why?”

  
“No reason.”

  
They were saved by Professor Logan, the Wolverine, which had to have been a first. He stalked in, door hitting the wall, and slammed a pile of teaching materials down on the desk at the front of the room. “Fighting With Fighting,” he growled, addressing the class, all of whom had arrived before him. He was reading off a page. “In this class, students will learn key offensive and defensive techniques for active combat scenarios. Blah, blah. The title explains itself,” he said, tossing the paper back onto the desk. “For today, you’re gonna be randomly paired up and sent down to fight each other in teams of two. So four people at a time. If you’re not currently fighting, you can watch and take notes or something.” He drank something out of an opaque bottle. Jaime and Quire had often guessed, telepathically, at what the bottle might be of, since the short, irritable headmaster carried it around everywhere.

  
“Okay,” said Logan. “The first team going down is gonna be…” He rifled through a tin can full of scraps of paper. “Blob Herman… and Mercury.” Blob Herman, a skeleton encased in a thick layer of pink goo, pumped his fist. Mercury (real name: Cessily Kincaid), a red-haired girl made of a substance similar to liquid mercury, sighed. “And the second is Jaime Hale…” Wow, first up. No pressure. “And Quentin Quire.” Quire made a sort of stifled choking noise. The rest of the class muttered amongst themselves. Most of them didn’t believe the two would ever be able to get along.

  
On their way down the stairs to the danger room, Blob Herman tried for the umpteenth time to joke around with Quire. “Quentin! Dude, is this cool or what?”

  
Quire had been avoiding Herman for a very long time, to little avail. “Choke,” he said, simply.

  
Then they were entering the danger room. It was a fairly large space, open, with a high ceiling. Everything was painted grey inside, and it was totally empty. Once the program had started, though, obstacles, structures, and/or enemies would appear, fabricated by the advanced computer running it. Jaime turned to Quire and tapped the side of her head, asking him to create a telepathic link.

  
“So,” she began, as each team headed toward an opposite corner. “How do you want to play this?”

  
“Long-range, duh. Neither of their powers are any good at a distance.”

  
“Right. Let’s try to use the structures to stay high, yeah?”

  
He nodded. “So, not that I care, but about yesterday –”

  
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have –”

  
An airhorn rang out as structures and obstacles began to appear. This preset seemed to be a wilderness theme. They both started to climb up a rapidly-expanding tree, higher and higher, unable to see the other team.

  
“No, what are you sorry for?” Quire continued the conversation.

  
“I thought I’d upset you or something.”

  
“What?” A gust of wind knocked Quire off his already-questionable balance, leaving him hanging by one arm off of an artificial tree branch.

  
She held out her hand to help him up. “Well, you’ve been uncharacteristically quiet.”

  
“Yeah, I guess,” he responded, sounding as if he didn’t really guess that. They kept climbing, almost to the top.

  
“Like did you get hurt or –”

  
He looked at her like she was crazy. “Me? No! I thought I’d overstepped, asking to see your power.”

  
Finally, they’d reached the top, or as far up as they could get without snapping branches and falling. Quire offered Jaime a hand up to his level, and she took it gratefully; the wind was getting harsher, and this far up, the tree was shaking. The still echo of their voices inside her head clashed with Jaime’s expectation of the wind necessitating that they yell.

  
“You didn’t overstep,” she assured him. “It was kind of… fun, I guess.” She thought she caught a small smile out of the corner of her eye.

  
The noise of Glob Herman crashing noisily through the underbrush travelled up to them even over the wind. “I assume you’re keeping the goggles on?” asked Quire.

  
Jaime bit her lip. “Actually, since I didn’t kill you yesterday – I might try it again.”

  
“Cool.” Quire peered downward at the ground as she cautiously removed the goggles. She winced at the sudden exposure, but managed to keep control, much to her surprise. She took a deep breath. “Okay, let’s go.”

  
Quire focused for a moment and then pointed off to their left. “Mercury’s over there – and Blob’s obviously right below us,” he added, gesturing to where they could still hear their classmate lumbering around.

  
“They split up? That was stupid considering that neither of them have any long-range capability.”

  
He nodded. “Anyway, I’ve got him if you’ve got her.”

  
“Sure.” Jaime swung gingerly over onto a rock outcropping as he started to climb down. Every noise, everything she saw translated itself into light and colours in her head, and she felt very aware of the goggles around her neck. She hopped down to the ground, trying to take deep breaths.

  
Suddenly, her foot slipped on something, and she stumbled, sliding on the same substance a few metres. She was still off balance when a fist hit her face, and she caught a quick glimpse of Mercury before the silver girl liquefied and reappeared at a short distance.

  
Jaime scowled and shifted her feet, digging them slightly into the ground to help her grip. Mercury smiled tightly, fists up, expecting Jaime to fly at her. Instead, she inhaled deeply and hummed a low note as she pointed two fingers toward her opponent, sending a streak of green light over the other girl’s shoulder. She hadn’t really used her power in so long, it was all she could do to cut off the light. And she’d missed. Shit.

  
Mercury darted forward as Jaime was trying to get herself back under control. This time, Jaime was ready, throwing a punch, but she slipped past it, arm transformed into a hammer, and hit the photokinetic right in the ribs, sending her stumbling almost to the ground. She was back to her corner as quickly as the metal she was made of, but, she was back a second later, knocking Jaime forward onto one knee from behind.

  
Jaime knew she should’ve stayed high. She turned, but she wasn’t fast enough to catch Mercury as she darted back and forth with sharp blows. Jaime’s efforts to clamber back up to her feet, or to get away, was largely in vain. And as the pain built, so did the light clamoring to be let out. Mercury finally stopped moving, standing over her. One well-placed blow would be enough to end the battle.  
Just as Mercury’s boot flew toward Jaime’s face, she threw her hands up, hoping to block the blow as best she could. But the faint millisecond’s impact of the kick’s beginning, bumping the skin of her forearms, snapped Jaime’s control in two.

  
Mercury flew back across the clearing. She landed with a smooth splash, and quickly moved into a defensive stance.

  
Jaime looked down at her hands in shock. They were glowing slightly, crackling with the light that had just exploded outward from her like a force field. In fact, she realized that she was glowing all over. This had definitely never happened before – neither the shield nor the… cosmetic effects. Mercury went to attack again, but this time a halo of energy around her warned Jaime, who was able to dodge the blow. The silver girl glared and extended both arms, both transformed. One was now a longsword, the other a mace.

  
Jaime put her fists up and blew out a breath. Something had just snapped into place: the random, painful spikes of light behind her eyes had transformed into threads weaving together. It felt right. She cracked her neck, and skeins of energy crackled around her like haloes.

  
Mercury lunged forward, mace shredding the air, while her sword stabbed forward. Jaime raised a hand and the mace bounced off another shield, while she barely dodged the sword. She barely had time to think before Mercury was attacking again. Another shield deflected the sword this time, and she rolled out of reach of the other weapon. She found herself directly behind her opponent. Mercury was just turning, mace already mid-swing, when Jaime seized her opportunity (although to be honest it was more a panic response than anything). She jumped and kicked Mercury directly in the face, full-force.  
The metal girl fell to the ground. She scrambled backward, but her weapons had changed back to arms and her defenses were down. Jaime stared into her eyes, reached out, and took hold of her aura, draining it and receiving a burst of energy. Mercury collapsed, unconscious.

  
A nervous, disbelieving laugh escaped Jaime’s lips. She really hadn’t thought she was going to win that fight. And that, that clarity? Her powers? Insane. She rested her hands on her knees for a second. Then she walked off toward the danger room’s door, confident that Quire had already long since beaten Blob Herman.

  
She was right. Quire was waiting by the door, which wouldn’t unlock until the winning team was there in its entirety. “Hey,” he said. “No goggles?”

  
She shook her head, a little giddy, and laughed again. He looked askance at her.

  
“No goggles,” she repeated, removing them from around her neck. She looked around for someplace to put them to no avail. Finally she placed them the same way on Quire. He arched an eyebrow, bemused, but didn’t argue, probably sensing that she wasn’t in her normal state of mind.

  
The door opened as the artificial battlefield melted away. Jaime’s steps were uncharacteristically bouncy as she walked up the stairs, closely followed by Quire, who stopped her just before the viewing room door. “Are you sure you want to go in there without these?” He moved to remove the goggles.

  
“Super sure,” she responded. “Get it? Super?” She laughed. “That was terrible!”

  
Quire looked concerned, but Jaime ignored him and went inside.


End file.
